For Italy's Elleuno, a Unified Environment

It was 2012 and Elleuno needed to move on, to move up. The organization, which manages a wide range of healthcare and social services provided by more than 70 agencies in Italy, had long ago outgrown the private branch exchange, or PBX, system it had used for 25 years. For Elleuno to continue to keep pace with the demand for services that helped some 13,000 Italians in 2013, staffers needed a new way to collaborate. Expanding or even upgrading its old voice-only environment wouldn’t do.

Elleuno was becoming increasingly crucial to the lives of elderly Italians, Alzheimer’s patients and children, and its operations required constant training among employees at its 50 offices throughout Italy. Staffers also wanted to brainstorm and collaborate more effectively with their counterparts at the more than 70 agencies who provide services to beneficiaries. And Elleuno wanted to cut the time and costs associated with in-person travel.

The solution was a new communications and collaboration environment built around Microsoft Lync 2013 and Lync voice and video solutions from Polycom. The unified environment lets Elleuno’s 2,300 employees connect face-to-face using high-definition video and voice, and they can speed decisions by sharing content in real time.

"From the outset, we witnessed enormous improvements to our communication and collaboration," says Emanuela Urban, chief information officer at Elleuno. "These days, our colleagues are no longer required to book a car and travel long distances from one office to another to conduct training workshops or meetings." Among the positive results: a 30 percent drop in travel spending.

"There has been a distinct culture shift given that now we’re able to work more efficiently," says Silvia Turzio, marketing director at Elleuno. "We have revolutionized the way we communicate."

In addition to a range of desktop phones optimized for Lync, Elleuno relies on Polycom universal video collaboration solutions purpose-built for use with Lync environments. Now users can organize video meetings featuring 1080p high-definition resolution and cameras that automatically track the flow of conversation. They even offer a panoramic 360-degree view of the meeting room.

Urban says Microsoft and Polycom are helping Elleuno staffers defy distance with "clearly simple solutions that are easy to use," and most meetings are now taking place over video. "All they have to do is pick up the phone, and they can manage the entire communication flow from instant messaging, to phone calls, to video conferences."

Eventually, the organization plans to extend video collaboration access to Italy’s federal public administration offices and to Elleuno’s network of care givers and their patients. "We frequently need to talk to doctors and consult with healthcare professionals," says Urban. "We could even enable patients to connect with their relatives who are far away."